Mainstream media has discovered the G-rated Chicken Noodle Soup Dance, the hip hop song and dance that originated in Harlem this summer and has spread across the nation. CBS News and The Daily News both report on it today because the craze’s young creators got a $1.7 million contract from Universal Records after being discovered on YouTube. But the dance is not without controversy.
The Chicken Noodle Soup song, by Tony (Webstar) Ryan, 19, and Bianca (Young H) Dupree, 16, is Number 44 on the Billboard hip hop chart this week. “There was no fun music for kids,” Dupree told The Daily News, “it was always a shoot-em-up or like gangsta music. People need something to listen to to get back in a positive mode.”
Yet, among 873 comments on the YouTube video that’s been viewed nearly a million times are some black people who feel the dance looks like a minstrel show and sets black people back 50 years.
It looks like just plain silly kid fun to me, “mad cute” as several people put it.
The agree that the dance is silly. But, how is a dance that is enjoyed by people having fun going to set us back. What’s setting us back is our perspectives. I don’t need to spell out for anyone.
All over America we twist our fingers up and shoot each other. How is that helping anyone? I am also disappointed to hear that the album is full of shootin’ and all that. I’m not tryin’ to talk down because I know from experience that what you are exposed to can effect you perspective greatly. I’m leave it at that.
I guess I didn’t make it clear that I think silly is great. I dance the Lindy Hop and it gets really silly. That’s why it’s so much fun.